Notes from the Surgeon

[NoahBriggs]

In preparing for your roles in the 2nd Mississippi please take into consideration that we will be doing a surgeon's call at six-thirty in the morning (that's so we the surgeons, in order to create more paperwork, establish health history, ensure a more accurate moment for you, and promote the general welfare of the Regiment).

We'd like to maintain a general first person environment during any hospital scenarios, but we understand if you need to take a break now and then.

To help you get "in the mood" we have searched a few relevant threads for your perusal:

Soldier health or lack thereof:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?18778-Soldier-Health-%28Or-Lack-Thereof%29&highlight=soldier+symptoms

Ideas for improving hospital scenarios:

http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/forum/showthread.php?18501-Sick-and-Wounded&highlight=soldier+symptoms

Please feel free to email me at bluemasscat at yahoo dot com if you have questions. More to follow further down.

[NoahBriggs]

"I am in good and robust health . . ."

The title comes from the frequent, one-line summary I read on the majority of the biographies when asked about one’s health history. I’m going to show you why that won’t necessarily be true.

Disclaimer 1:
I will be discussing human bodily functions in this article. I won’t hide behind cutesy euphemisms. You have been informed.

Disclaimer 2:
I present this information for informational purposes only. If someone comes across primary sources that list symptoms or specific diseases, please let me know! I’m always interested in reading about medical conditions in their historic context.

Introduction:
Not many of us really stop to think about our health or the impact of the environment on our health. We are used to having the dangerous areas roped off and marked, the ingredients listed, the bulletins tell us what is safe and what’s not. All of it is (or should be) backed by numerous government laws designed to make sure we are well-informed of the potential hazards to our health.

We had none of that in the period. Industry (or the farm) has no workman’s comp, there is no health insurance, there are no dangerous areas roped off. You went to work and took your chances. You could be injured, maimed, or even killed in the various jobs in the era.

Your Health History:

From the very beginning, as soon as you were born, you were subjected to a devil’s Petri dish of common childhood illnesses. Measles, mumps, chickenpox, smallpox, whooping cough, rickets, scoliosis, tuberculosis. More would be cholera, malaria, and the American Favorite, yellow fever. Local cemeteries are filled with depressing headstones: “Mary, died Age 6, measles.”
“John Wilson, b. June 18, 1834, d. March 12, 1837. May the Angels watch over him.”

With such a high child turnover rate it was no wonder that families were larger back then. Nowadays anyone who can create more than four children can earn a contract with The Learning Channel. Back in “our day” four children were just the beginning. Couples had numerous children, up to half or so surviving to adulthood. Children were an asset – more kids meant more hands helping around the house or on the job, which generated more income.

This assumes, of course, that the mother was able to deliver a child in the usual manner. Thanks to bad nutrition and diseases like rickets, not all pelvises formed correctly. Fall on the hip and break it, (assuming it does not heal correctly) and delivering a child could be complete agony.

Most of us would be born between 1810 and 1840. If you were sick, then you might be treated according to the treatments of Dr. Benjamin Rush, or Gunn’s Domestic Medicine, or, The Poor
Man’s Friend. Both books would provide a good example of how diseases were treated. The short story is, a good purge with calomel, then use other medicines to treat the other symptoms. Gunn’s is especially useful because it is written in plain English with few, if any, technical terms. I also have a couple of articles which provide even more concise summaries if wading through Gunn’s is not your cup of tea.

By the 1850s and 60s the treatments had mellowed out – most of the blistering, bleeding and violent purges had been left by the wayside in favor of more moderate treatments which were not so melodramatic.

Think also of the environment. “Goin’ Green” is not an operative catchphrase in the era. The area may have been stripped of trees. Streams and rivers would be clogged with human and animal waste which had been washed there by the rains. Dirt/corded/planked roads would be kicking up a lot of dust, which includes dry animal dung, which causes a lot of eye irritation. Garbage dumps and privies would be everywhere.

Your health was a very precious commodity. To include your health history will help you expand your persona and create opportunities to expand your persona’s history and tie otherwise unrelated events together in your bio.

Your health history will also determine your current attitude towards doctors. Most of us were born in the Jacksonian administration. The administration emphasized the independence of the common man and created, ironically a distrust of major authorities which included the medical profession. Someone growing up in the 20s to the 40s would have had blistering, puking, and bloodletting as treatments, while those of us born in the late 40s and early 50s received milder treatments. Therefore a person from the earlier time might have a negative attitude towards physicians, while the younger generation might not feel so ambivalent toward them.

Your occupation and your environment will affect your health and your health will affect you for the rest of your life.

If you would like additional information emailed to you in PDF files, please email me at bluemasscat at yahoo dot com. On behalf of the regimental hospital staff I look forward to working with you to create a cool and interesting historic experience for both yourselves and for the public at large.

[desotobob]

Re: "I am in good and robust health . . ."

I am Joseph Deval from Itawamba County. I am in the Town Creek Rifles and proud to admit I have not been sick for one day of my life. Farm work is hard in northern Mississippi, but it makes for some mighty healthy menfolk.

[Dale Beasley]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

"Getting in the mood by reading about PTSD", is going to improve my impression how?

[Pious Jeems]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

"Getting in the mood by reading about PTSD", is going to improve my impression how?

W. P. A. History of Pontotoc County, Mississippi

CHAPTER 1 CONTINUED

Interviews

While the "bottoms" were being cleared there were terrible scourges of fatal sickness from June until frost. Patients were treated by sweat baths, bleeding, and by herb and bark teas.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ms...wHenderson.htm

Also if your old enough you should recall when the Stars Fell in 1833.
They were not afraid of grandfather, because they loved him, and when "the stars fell" in 1833.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ms...viewFoster.htm

Mr. Carter remembers seeing the doctor gather dogfennel blooms for medicine. For many years thereafter people came to get the bark of prickly-ash trees in the neighborhood for rheumatism. The remedy was to soak the bark in whiskey, purchased for fifty cents a gallon from a still located in the fork of Mud and Cane creeks, for about two weeks, and then began drinking it.

Mud Creek and Cane creek runs through our bottom land. How come I can't find that still?:wink_smil

[Dale Beasley]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

Come go fishing down this way, and I'll show you two of Paw Dads old still sites up in a cave on a creek bank, 1/4 of a mile from an Indian Mound..... and get you some cain shine, (a.k.a. Rum) from down in Louisiana...cooked three times.

[dixieflyer]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

Two words: Copperhead Road. ;)

[NoahBriggs]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

Originally I was disappointed when I read the replies to my notes. I had worked long and hard to condense what is a technical topic to something which could be easily digested in the frenzy of research we have all contributed. In a fit of irony, though, I realized the level of disdain for what I have posted is, in fact, historically correct. Surgeons were not highly regarded in the early part of the war. Education and qualifications were inconsistent or just plain non-existent, so quality of care will vary from surgeon to surgeon. Some of the treatments were up to date; some were old-fashioned. It's not surprising, given how some of the patients had been treated when they were younger, that their prior experiences would affect their attitude towards the surgeon in the present.

Regardless of what you may think of the hospital department I still look forward to participating with one of the best units and most accurate bunch at the event. I will try hard to provide those who participate as period-correct a hospital department as my research abilities and resources permit.

Stay hydrated and safe (in whichever order you choose).

[Coatsy]

Re: Notes from the Surgeon

Mod Note: Folks, keep the comments for this thread centered on the topic at hand: First person scenarios/info regarding ACW health/lack of health with the battalion surgeon and assistant surgeons. There are plenty of other other places to make off-hand comments.